EuroBoosTex and xBUILD-EU have come to an end. 10 members of Tèxtils.CAT awarded with 212k EUR in funding from the last calls
The Eurocluster projects xBUILD-EU and EuroBoosTex finished on 31st August, the former led by Tèxtils.CAT and the latter by ATEVAL.
They aimed to facilitate networking opportunities to improve the resilience of the EU industrial textile ecosystem by strengthening the relationships between clusters and to foster the innovation capabilities of the textile industry facilitating the adoption of processes and technologies to reinforce the transformation towards a greener and more digital economy. Lastly, their ultimate goal was to foster the upgrading and re-skilling of the textile industry workforce, making them competitive in global value chains.
Both projects completed the evaluation of the 93 proposals received during the xBUILD-EU second call and EuroBoosTex third call for proposals. In total, 113 SMEs from 17 countries participated, and the 33 best projects were selected to be funded with grants of up to €20,000 for 7 Innovate Individual projects (xBUILD-EU), €25,000 for 6 Global projects (xBUILD-EU), €50,000 for 5 Green and Digital consortium projects (xBUILD-EU) and €12.000 for 15 winning SMEs 3rd call to discover or strengthen market opportunities in Australia (EuroBoosTex).
Spain was the country with most SMEs funded: 15 SMEs out of the 33 beneficiaries, followed by Portugal 6, Italy and Irland (both with 5). In total, xBUILD-EU was awarded 540.000€ and EuroBoostex 180.000€.
10 members of Tèxtils.CAT were granted their strategic innovation and/or internationalization projects, in order to increase their competitiveness.
The projects selected within Tèxtils.CAT members include: 3rd call Individual Internationalization to Australia projects (EuroBoosTex) by SensingTex, CP Aluart, Marina Technical Fabrics, Arpe, RUTEX and Textil Tapias , 2 Global projects (xBUILD -EU) by the companies RUTEX and DUCTEL, 2 Innovate projects (xBUILD -EU) by LIASA and MEDI CARE Systems and 1 Green and Digital consortium project (xBUILD -EU) by Textil Tapias and its digital provider.
Tèxtils.CAT positively evaluates the implication of the cluster members in the different activities of both projects and their success in the last open calls with grants awarded for a total value of 212.000€.
Tèxtils.CAT considers these projects as a cornerstone for building resilience in the sector and the expansion of its innovation capacity. Clusters act as a hub and as a collaborative environment to facilitate partnership between enterprises, research institutes, policy makers and other institutions that promote innovation and provide SMEs access to new knowledge competencies, resources and markets.